At its heart—its big, tender heart—speculative fiction is speculation. It demands from its readers what some call a suspension of disbelief, where reality takes a backseat, and our imaginations open their arms wide to the monsters hiding underneath our bed; or the technology that rears its head when we look away; or the neighbor brewing love and lust potions down the hall. One must pick their poison, but we, the speculative reader, gladly guzzle the Kool-Aid down. In fact, whenever we turn the page, we demand to be whisked away from reality. We scour bookstores to sniff out (ephemeral) escapes from personal and public melancholies and mundanities alike. These new worlds, from Middle-earth to Arrakis, from the Matrix to Velaris, welcome us if not warmly, then profoundly.

Hungry for full immersion, our disbelief suspends, our imaginations float, and we disremember silly little things.